Surviving Death
by fnur
Summary: The prompt: War comes and goes, leaving behind an unknown disease that marks a new terror in Panem's history. When those they love are struck down they're forced to flee into the woods that Katniss and Gale know so well. But Peeta's presence means relationships become blurred, something they're going to have to deal with if they're to make it out alive.


The worst part of the disease was the sound.

It was a contagion that killed indiscriminately, turning everyone – peacekeeper to mineworker, merchant to mayor – into just a walking disease, a statistic and a toe-tag.

Another body buried in the meadow.

A few hours later, another body that would rise.

The entire district – and unbeknownst to them, the entire nation of Panem – was filled with the senses of death. The smell of putrid flesh decaying, the sight of graying tissue falling off still-moving bones, the taste of ash that filled the air when the corpses had to be burned to prevent them from resurrecting, the feel of cold slippery skin and sharp bones reaching around your neck before tearing into you -

But what Katniss hated the most was the sound. She shuddered at the horror of the sound when one of these – these "diseased ones", as they were called – rose from the dead. The guttural moan somehow made from cold, dead flesh and lungs that no longer drew breath haunted those who were still living. It was almost as bad as the terrified screams made from those unlucky enough to be caught by the diseased ones, or the sounds of dead teeth tearing into living flesh.

When the districts decided they'd had enough of the tyranny and oppression forced upon them by the Capitol, they decided to rebel – using the distraction of Katniss and Peeta's Victory tour to organize their forces and sneak communication to each other through well-placed contacts working on the Tribute Train. On the day President Snow stood before the nation and announced that the tributes of the Third Quarter Quell would be selected from existing victors, the districts took action. The Peacekeepers and local officials had been completely unprepared for an organized revolt, and the Justice Buildings of eight out of twelve districts had fallen into rebel hands by the time the hovercrafts came.

They didn't use nuclear bombs as they had done with District Thirteen. Those would cause too much damage, and then what would the Capitol use for food, clothing, energy or jewelry? Instead, they used a new weapon they called "chemical warfare."

It was meant to kill the rebels painfully, dramatically, publicly. It was meant to minimize property damage and wreak maximum havoc and fear throughout Panem. It was meant to send a message, not an apocalypse.

Like jabberjays into mockingjays, it mutated. Once the chemicals that had only been tested in the controlled environment of a Capitol lab mixed with the local flora and allergens of the various districts, it mutated into a disease. The Capitol didn't mind at first – the rebels were still dying. What they didn't expect was that the dead would fight back.

The Capitol sent more Peacekeepers defend their ground. Within hours they were all bitten, and contracted the disease.

The Capitol built bigger fences, with barbed wire and a deadly current of electricity coursing through at all times. The diseased ones climbed over it, their slackened skin tearing on barbs and sizzling like fatty meat through the shock but not stopping.

By the time the Capitol considered using nuclear bombs and the rebels figured out that destroying the brain was the only way to bring the diseased ones down, the disease had reached every corner of Panem. No one knows who bit President Snow, but in the end he was as vulnerable as the rest, his throne built on the blood and secrets of others had offered him no protection.

Survivors who studied history said that before the Dark Days, before the Great War, there was a name for a disease that spread like this: "pandemic". Since Panem was no longer a division of Capitol versus Districts but survivors versus diseased ones, Gale jokingly said that "Pandemic" should be the new name for the country.

It's hard to find humor when you've spent your life providing for and protecting your loved ones, only to watch them fall one by one from disease no healer could fix. But Gale was a survivor, like Katniss.

On the day Katniss and Gale went to the Hob and saw Posy Hawthorne - the sweet little four-year-old girl who liked to pick flowers and put them in Prim's hair - devour the wrinkled flesh on Greasy Sae's leg as the old woman was torn to bits by a pack of diseased ones, they knew it was time to leave District Twelve and never look back.

The district was lost. They needed to get to the woods, where they could hold the advantage that years of hunting had given them. They could provide for their loved ones there, and keep watch over each other. They could survive there. If they stayed in District Twelve much longer, their small number of loved ones would continue to dwindle.

By the time they had gathered enough tools, food and supplies to make a run for it, there were only a few survivors willing to go with them.

Prim.

Peeta.

Haymitch.

Thom.

That was it.

There were a couple of other survivors, but they refused to leave the supposed safety of their own home, still believing the Capitol lie that the dangers which lurked beyond the fence were far worse than anything within the district.

Mrs. Everdeen was one of the first in the district to succumb to the disease, because when residents began developing the tell-tale symptoms of graying flesh and decreased brain activity, they did what they always did when sick – go see the healer. Mrs. Everdeen was bitten by a coalminer named Bristel, forty minutes after his heart beat for the last time on her kitchen table.

Mrs. Everdeen bit Hazelle and Vick when they came in to check on her. Hazelle bit Posy, and then Mrs. Mellark when the mean baker's wife accosted her in the street to ask when her laundry would be done. Vick bit two kids at school, and his brother Rory. Mrs. Mellark bit her husband and two oldest sons. And so on. And so on.

After a while, it was too painful to figure out who bit whom, which diseased one infected another. Because that would mean remembering the images of their friends and family killing each other.

The six of them left for the woods as soon as dawn broke over the horizon. Gale and Katniss had determined that they would go to the cabin and use it as shelter, even if it was temporary. The lake would provide fresh water, roots and fish. Gale and Katniss would provide food from hunting and gathering. Thom, Haymitch and Peeta would repair the cabin and build barricades and watch towers for defense. Prim would gather plants for medicine, and keep them healthy.

It worked perfectly for the first week. They would all take turns on watch - two at a time, at all times. Katniss insisted on taking the same watch as Prim, still protecting her beloved little sister no matter the cost. Gale and Thom teamed up, as did Peeta and Haymitch. Since one team was always on watch, it meant that Katniss, Gale and Peeta were never awake and in the same room at the same time.

When Gale and Thom were on watch in the evenings, Peeta held Katniss as they slept to keep their nightmares at bay. When Peeta and Haymitch were on watch in the mornings, Gale and Katniss snuck off into the woods they knew so well and felt free, even if just for a moment. When Katniss and Prim were on watch in the afternoons, Gale and Peeta were able to focus on survival just long enough to put aside their jealousy and differences.

Both men – and despite their teenage years, both Peeta and Gale had already experienced more than enough pain and loss in their lives to become men – still loved Katniss. But for the moment, their goal was a mutual one – to make sure Katniss and everyone else survived.

Katniss wasn't oblivious to them. Close quarters in the cabin meant everyone had to share everything – food, beds, personal space. She knew how Gale's eyes seemed to light on fire when he'd come in the cabin and see her curled against Peeta's chest, comforted after one of her nightmares. She knew how Peeta's jaw flexed when she and Gale would return from the woods, flushed from exertion as they smiled and brushed leaves from each other's hair and clothing.

But she couldn't allow herself think about it. For now, she could only be grateful that both were here with her. The only thing that mattered was surviving, perhaps seeking other survivors. She refused to believe that the six of them were the only ones left. Of all the faces she'd seen on the Victory Tour, there had to be somebody left.

After eight days in the woods of pure routine and no sign of the disease, Gale and Thom spotted movement in the woods – a rustling behind a bush. Gale raised his bow from the watchtower, preparing to take a shot at whatever came through. If it was an animal, they could use it for food. If it was a diseased one, an arrow through the head could stop it.

When the creature burst through the leaves, Gale lowered his bow and smiled.

"Prim, come out here and see!" he yelled.

By the time the others walked out of the cabin to see what was happening, Prim had scooped Buttercup into her arms and was hugging him to her chest. That mean, mangy cat had seemed to disappear days before they had left District Twelve, and Katniss had assumed the cat was gone forever. Prim was overjoyed that Buttercup had found them, so gloriously overjoyed that she didn't notice how cold and gray his skin was under the yellow matted fur shedding beneath her fingers in clumps, or the dead look in his bloodshot eyes as he looked up to his beloved Prim. Right before he sank his teeth into her throat.

Katniss was by her side in a second, but it was too late. By the time she pulled the cat off of Prim and stabbed him in the head, the damage had been done. The cat's fangs had torn through Prim's windpipe and much of her carotid artery, ensuring death within minutes, if not seconds. Prim didn't cry, and she didn't call out. She just looked up in shock, her eyes searching the sky for answers as her mouth fell open in a silent scream.

The rest just watched, horrified. They couldn't move, they couldn't speak. They knew they couldn't save her.

Katniss clutched her sister tightly, as if she were trying to hold the life inside her dying sister. She was screaming, screaming, screaming at her to please just hang on, don't leave, while the last seconds of Prim's life bled out on the forest floor beneath them. There was blood everywhere, hot and red and thick, looking all the more terrible against two blonde braids that used to sway in the breeze and pale cheeks that were normally flushed from smiling. More than anything else, what Katniss would remember the most about that moment is the sound Prim made as she struggled to breathe, her lungs drowning in blood.

Then, silence.

Katniss had fought through hunger and poverty and sacrifice. She had battled twenty-two tributes and Capitol politics and Snow's machinations, all to save Prim. But as Prim died in her arms, all Katniss could think of was everything she didn't do, everything she could have done that would have kept Prim from that place, that moment, that death.

One by one, they all tried to pull Katniss off the body – and they had to remind themselves that it was just a body now, because everything lovely and sweet and generous of Prim was gone now, and in her place was a shell – but she would not budge for what felt like hours. She just held on to Prim's body and rocking back and forth, crying with her eyes closed and softly singing to her. She refused to open her eyes again and see Prim's body. If Katniss kept her eyes closed, she could pretend Prim was sleeping. Just sleeping. So she sang Prim a lullaby to help her sleep. Later, Katniss would realize it was the same song she sang to ease Rue's pain as the young tribute had died in her arms.

Not until Katniss had worn herself out from crying would she allow Gale and Peeta to pull her into the cabin, leaving Thom and Haymitch the terrible but necessary task of destroying the pale, blonde head before the monster growing within would rise.

No words were spoken in the cabin. Together, Gale and Peeta did their best to clean the blood and dirt from her skin and clothes, gently wiping off the traces with a wet rag and water from a clay jug. They removed her father's hunting boots and thick woolen socks before putting her on one of the ratty mattresses they shared in the cabin. Katniss reached across the mattress to pull the pillow Prim had been sleeping on only hours before and pulled it to her chest, curling her body around it. She shrank away from them and nestled against the place where wall and mattress met, trying to make herself as small as possible. Gale and Peeta stared at her for what felt like an eternity, wanting to help her but uncertain as to how, paralyzed by their own shock and grief.

Anger began to boil through Gale's veins as he watched his best friend mourn the loss of the only person Katniss was sure she loved. He stared at her, not feeling how his hands were shaking. He was angry with the Capitol for unleashing this nightmare across the country. He was angry with District Twelve for not doing more to fight back, too weakened by fear and hunger. He was angry at that stupid fucking cat. But most of all, Gale was angry with himself.

Struggling to swallow the hot bile rising in his throat, he thought of all the ways he had failed. He should have known better to wait and observe the cat before calling Prim out. He was sure his years of experience and hunter's instinct would have allowed him to notice the tell-tale signs of disease, if he had only taken a moment to look. Instead, he was too happy to see a small sign of what their lives used to be, and all he had wanted to do was bring a smile to Prim's face, and therefore to Katniss's face as well.

Instead, Gale blamed himself for Prim's death, and for Katniss's sorrow. He couldn't stand to see his effect on her right now. He couldn't stand himself.

Shaking with rage, he grabbed the water jug from the floor and flung it against the nearest wall. By the time the shattered pieces hit the floor, Gale had stormed out. Katniss didn't even flinch at the sound, too lost in her grief and exhaustion. Peeta stood by the window, watching Gale disappear into the forest and wondering if he should go after him. After all, it may not be safe and they all needed Gale now more than ever. Even Katniss, he admitted. And even himself.

Once their gruesome duty was complete and the body buried away, Thom pulled the knife from Buttercup's corpse and silently returned to his duty on the watchtower. Haymitch reached for his flask, now containing just a small precious amount of white liquor that he had tried to ration for emergencies. He drained the flask, desperate for anything that would help him stop feeling everything he felt at that moment. After the last drops poured down his throat, he entered the cabin and found Katniss curled into a ball on her mattress, and Peeta wrapped around her back, as if surrounding her with his body would protect her from this pain.

As the first edge of the sun pushed its way above the horizon, Gale returned to the cabin with a full game bag. He sat down at the rickety table in the corner and begun unloading his haul, dividing items into piles as he skinned and cleaned the meat. He ignored Peeta and Haymitch's stares, and he didn't even need to look at Katniss to know that she was in the exact same position he had left her in, having cried herself to sleep.

In awkward silence, Peeta and Haymitch finished the last of their breakfast and gathered their supplies for watch duty – a shared canteen of water, a small lunch of greens and fish, and a small arsenal of knives and other weapons. Haymitch went ahead to relieve Thom of watch duty, while Peeta took a moment to pause next to Katniss. He brushed the hair from her face and leaned down to kiss her forehead as Gale watched, having finished with his work.

Peeta stood up and saw Gale staring at them – at him, with her. The former baker – what he wouldn't have given for a day in the bakery with his family, for even a minute of the quiet life he had before! – stared back at Gale.

"Make sure she eats something," Peeta said, motioning to a plate on the mattress beside her.

Gale nodded. "I'll take care of her."

"I know," Peeta said, walking outside.

Prim was gone and Katniss was lost. Until Katniss was able to begin breaking through her grief, the men were on their own. They spent the next few days dividing the duties amongst the four of them, while Gale and Peeta shared the responsibility of caring for Katniss. Together, they did what needed to be done for her - feed her, bathe her, clothe her. She was awake but not aware – her eyes were open but they didn't seem to see the concern etched in their faces, looking at her for some sign of life and finding none. She ate the food they placed in front of her, but it tasted like ashes on her tongue. She didn't have the strength to cry or speak, because it took everything in her just to breathe.

Gale and Peeta worked together - if not to save her, then to help her. If not to help her, then to help each other. They were uniquely able to relate to the pain the other man felt - to love Katniss, but be unsure of the love she felt in return. To wish more than anything they could take her pain and swallow it, if feeling her pain themselves would somehow make it more bearable for her. They weren't rivals anymore, fighting for Katniss's attention and affection. They were survivors in a war, clinging to each other to save the woman they thought was worth fighting for.

It was a warm afternoon, several days after Prim's death, when Gale and Peeta decided to bring her outside to sit by the lake. As they had done before, they carefully removed her boots and socks so she could feel the water between her toes.

By now, they were used to her silence, even though she had never been talkative before. They sat on the lake's shore on either side of her, each holding one of her hands and watching the sun sink against the treeline. They didn't see the tears sliding down her cheeks until she couldn't hold the sobbing back any longer. Together, they each held her and wiped her face as she cried for her sister.

The world they lived in was cruel, Katniss realized. Prim was dead and yet the sun still rose every morning and set at night, even though her soft blue smiling eyes would never see it again. Katniss once thought that if Prim died, she would die too, unable to go on. But that would be kind, and life was cruel. Time marched on, despite her loss, and Katniss realized she would need to find a way to go on, as well.

After that day, she forced herself back into the routine with the others. She began to take watch shifts again, even if sometimes she just wanted to be alone in the woods for a while. Sometimes she went into the woods to hunt, but sometimes she had to stop, doubled over with the urge to cry. When she and Gale were laying snares and encountered a diseased one stuck in a ravine, she was the one to kill it with an arrow right between the eyes. She sat with the others and helped – making arrows, skinning animals, and gathering plants for food and vines for rope and snares. She didn't want to talk, but none of them did much anymore. What was there to talk about that didn't remind them of their loss and the life they left behind in District Twelve?

One morning as the sunlight began to filter through the trees, Peeta woke up to find the other side of the mattress was cold. He couldn't find her anywhere, not that there were many places to look in the small cabin, but he looked for any sign of her. He threw on his coat and shoes in a panic and rushed outside, stopping short when he saw Katniss and Haymitch sitting on the ground, their backs against the side of the cabin.

"Sit with us," Katniss asked Peeta, reaching her hand towards him. He sighed, relieved of her safety, then grabbed her hand and eased himself down next to her, interlacing their fingers and rubbing the seam of his prosthetic with his other hand. His leg wasn't hurting right now, but it did so frequently that rubbing the place where manufacture met flesh had become almost a nervous habit for him.

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the sky slowly fill with light. The only sounds were those of the forest slowly coming to life, and the occasional rustle of Haymitch's jacket as his hands shook from the alcohol withdrawal. As soft light illuminated the forest floor in front of them, Peeta's eyes focused on what Katniss and Haymitch had been looking at. A diseased one sat motionless against a tree, held in place to the bark by a long knife in its forehead. If the diseased one's dull, grey skin had still been attached to its face and if both eyes had still been in the skull, they would have recognized Mayor Undersee.

"They're going to find us," Haymitch said, breaking the silence.

Peeta nodded. "I know," said Katniss.

"It might be today, it might be next month. But they'll run out of people to eat in Twelve and come looking for more. Just like this fucker right here, or the one Sweetheart found the other day, Just like that damn cat," Haymitch said. Katniss glared at him in anger for a moment before the resignation washed over her face again.

"I know," said Katniss. Peeta tightened his grip on her hand.

"It's like we never left the arena," Peeta said. "We're still fighting for our lives."

Haymitch snorted. "The only ones who left the arena were those lucky enough to die there."

Gale and Thom walked through the clearing, their watch shift complete. They sat down on the ground next to the group without question, giving a quick glance to the body as they passed, and they fell into silence once again.

Eventually, it was Thom who broke the quiet. "We have to leave, don't we?"

Katniss nodded.

"We don't have anywhere to go," Thom said.

"Then we make a place to go," Gale said, looking at Katniss and Peeta's joined hands.

"Or," Haymitch drew out slowly, "we go somewhere that doesn't exist."

They stared at him in confusion, then disbelief as he explains the real story of District 13 – how it wasn't actually decimated, despite all Capitol propaganda and threats to the contrary. District 13 didn't just mine graphite, as the Capitol had always told them. The majority of their resources went into the design and production of nuclear weapons, creating an arsenal of destruction that the Capitol had mistakenly believed was completely in their control. When hovercrafts rained fire upon the residents of District 13, the survivors moved underground to live in the tunnels and bunkers already created to house the nuclear arsenal.

The same arsenal now under their control, as they informed the Capitol. Threatening to unleash a nuclear war at the Capitol's doorstep, District 13 demanded their independence in exchange for silence. If the District stayed underground and pretended to be extinct, the Capitol would leave them alone and use the tale of "the foolish rebel citizens of District 13" as a parable to the rest of the nation. Rise up against us, and we will annihilate you, just like we did to District 13.

For nearly seventy-five years, District 13 had been silent on the surface while rebuilding under the surface of the Earth. Eventually, word spread to a few select individuals about their existence – a Gamemaker sympathetic to the rebel cause here, a well-placed Victor with a knack for getting the secrets of others there. Contact was made with District 13 from the outside for the first time in decades, and the seeds of another rebellion was born.

It was District 13 who assisted the other districts in preparing for their rebel uprising. No one could have prepared for the onslaught of pestilence that would create the diseased ones, but no one was better suited to handle it than District 13. They lived a life of constant vigilance and military preparation. If there was any place in all of Panem that would have survivors and resources, it was them.

"Well, why the hell haven't we been headed there the whole time?" Katniss yelled.

"Because, sweetheart," Haymitch replied angrily, "this cabin was just a two hour hike away. District 13 is at least a week away, and that's if we don't run into trouble along the way. And that's not looking too likely now, is it? Besides, I don't have a map. I don't know exactly where it is, just that it's somewhere northeast of here. That doesn't exactly do us a lot of damn good, does it?"

"I know where it is," Thom said quietly. They all turned their attention to him, shocked.

He shrugged. "I like maps."

Thom looked away from their stares and looked at his hands, now cracked and worn with dirt instead of coal dust. He liked the dirt better – unlike the coal dust, dirt reminded him of everything that was living. Life sprouted up through dirt, searching for the sun. Life withered away in coal dust, waiting for the day it would be snuffed out under the earth.

"When I was in school, I would study the maps of the Districts and Panem, and imagine a day where the fences would be down and we could travel across the country, so that my daddy wouldn't be sad anymore. Sometimes when I was a kid and my brothers and I were in bed for the night, I would hear my daddy start crying. I never asked him why, but I know now. He cried because every day he had to go into the mine and break his body for a few cents, and he worked there even though he was in pain and he knew he was going to die there one day. And after all he did to provide for us, it wasn't enough.

"Years ago, when winter was especially bad, we didn't have enough food to go around but my daddy couldn't work any more shifts than he already was. Mama told him she'd find to way to stretch the food, and not to worry about it. So she gave us all her food and told us not to tell, so us kids would have something on our plates. And she kept getting skinnier and weaker but Daddy was too worn out to see what was going on and she kept giving us her share. We didn't know she wasn't keeping any for herself, she just told us she was making the food stretch. But that's the only way she could have done it – none of us kids were old enough for tesserae, and no one in the Merchant area could afford to give her more money to clean their homes. One morning, she just didn't wake up. She was skin and bones, but she was still my mama and she didn't wake up no matter how hard I tried.

"My daddy cried almost every night after that, except on the nights when he was too tired to do anything but pass out on the bed. So at school, I would look at the maps and wonder if things were as hard there as they were here. I would draw the maps and make notes, figuring out how I would travel from one place to another, and how long it would take to get there. When I would hear Daddy crying, I would think of a day when I would get to travel, because I would find a place where we could have enough food, and my daddy could work and still see the sun, and not have to cry anymore."

Thom refused to look at any of them, afraid he'd see looks of understanding that only those who have suffered similar hardship can give. Poverty was a way of life for District Twelve – for all of the districts, really. At one point, all had hoped for an escape. Thom was just brave enough to say it out loud.

He cleared his throat when he couldn't take their silence any longer. "From the northernmost part of District Twelve, up on the outer edge of Victor's Village, it's just over 130 miles to the southeast tip of District 13." Using the tip of his knife, he drew a basic map – the outlines of District 12 and 13, and his personal estimate of where the cabin was located. Together they determined that they would need to move northeast, which would help them avoid the mountains but would bring them closer to the edge of District 12. It's a risk they needed to take, though – the hike itself would be dangerous enough, and with the dangers of the slippery rock formations, colder temperatures, and wild animals, trying to pass through the mountain range was just as likely to kill them as an encounter with a diseased one. At least they had weapons to protect them from diseased ones.

It took them half the day to pack up everything. Because they had no idea what would await them in 13, if anything, they salvaged as much as possible, pulling up nails and boards they had used to shore up the cabin windows and filling every possible container with food and water. Before leaving, Katniss stopped and turned to the cabin, aware that this may be the last time she would ever see it. Kissing the tips of the three middle fingers on her left hand before raising them in salute, she said goodbye to a place she would try to remember with happy moments from her childhood instead of her sister's last breath.

They hiked until the sun dipped low beneath the trees before stopping to set up camp. It's dark once they set up their temporary shelter, so dinner that evening was a simple one of supplies they already had on hand – some dried deer meat, a bit of roasted squirrel, and greens. Starting a fire to cook fresh meat would cause unwelcome attention from predators, like bears or diseased ones. Haymitch and Peeta volunteered for the first watch as the others settled in, tucked against one another beneath a copse of red oak trees.

After a couple of uneventful hours, a scream pierced the silence. Peeta gathered up a trembling Katniss and tried to wake her from her nightmare, as Gale and Thom looked on, paralyzed with terror and confusion. It took a few minutes, but Peeta was able to wake Katniss and calm her down. "It was just a nightmare," he told her while clutching her to his chest. "You're safe with us."

Gale kneeled beside them and put his hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it was, Catnip, it wasn't real."

He meant it to be comforting, but it's not. She narrowed her eyes at him in anger, causing a fresh flood of tears to pour down her cheeks. "You don't know! It was real, Gale!" she said angrily through her tears. "They're all real, every night! If it's not about being in the arena, it's about running for our lives and losing Prim. Sometimes they blend together, and it's Cato killing Prim, or a diseased one attacking Rue, but it's all real! I lost them all!" Gale pulled his hand from her shoulder as if he had been burned. She turned and buried her head against Peeta's chest, sobbing until she wore herself out.

Peeta held her and rocked back and forth softly until she fell asleep again. His attention was on her, but he couldn't help but glance sympathetically to Gale. Peeta knew Gale was struggling to relate to Katniss, and had been ever since they returned from the Games. It was the same way everyone had tried to relate to Peeta, but couldn't. Only another Victor could understand them now.

Gale stood up and backed away, feeling as if his very presence was offensive to her. There was no going back to sleep for him now, so he decided to finish Peeta's shift for watch. Perhaps he could be useful to somebody. He was not used to feeling incapable, especially when it came to Katniss.

"Is that your first time seeing that?" Haymitch asked, nodding his head towards Katniss.

Gale had crept up to the watch spot deep in thought, not noticing the old man's presence. Haymitch sat against a thick oak tree, using his knife to whittle away a fallen branch.

"You can go to bed, I can take over watch," Gale told him, avoiding his question.

Haymitch shook his head. "I don't sleep much anymore. Haven't in years, even when I had a little something in my flask to take the edge off. The nightmares aren't worth the sleep."

"I guess I've missed a lot, taking the night watch shift," Gale said.

Haymitch shrugged. "Not much to it. Hers are rough – she starts screaming and flailing around, like she's drowning or trying to fight. The boy's aren't like that, he just gets real scared."

"What about yours?" Gale asked.

Haymitch just smiled to himself sadly, silently watching the slivers of wood fall away as he sliced the blade down the length of the branch.

"Does she have those every night?" Gale asked.

Haymitch shook his head. "No. But most nights, she does."

"Does he help her?" Gale asked. Haymitch looked up to see Gale looking at them in the shelter. Katniss was asleep, her arms wrapped around Peeta's shoulders like he was a lifeline. Peeta held her tight to him with one arm, and lightly stroked her hair with the other.

"He does," Haymitch said, returning his attention to his work. "Sure as shit don't know why he does it, but he does."

Gale looked to him, confused. "What do you mean, you don't know why he does it? He's in love with her."

"Yes," Haymitch said. "He sure is. Always has been, I guess. And probably always will be. I just don't know why."

Gale kept looking at them, now both asleep and still entangled in each other. He wondered, as he often did, what would have happened if Katniss had never gone to the Games. Would she have seen something more in him, as he had in her? Could they have settled down together, had a toasting and maybe even children? Would she have allowed him to hold her the way that she allowed Peeta to now? He imagined holding her – her scent of smoke and wood and fresh things enveloping him, her arms clinging tightly around his neck as he ran his fingers through the dark strands free of her usual braid, brushing against the smooth but scarred skin of her arms…

"I do. I know why," Gale said, so softly Haymitch almost didn't hear it.

"I bet you do," Haymitch said, chuckling softly to himself.

They woke at dawn and packed quickly. The terrain in this part of the woods was full of rolling hills, but the ground was hard and dry, allowing them to move quickly. By the time they stopped for lunch and a break, they had walked farther than they planned, and decided to take the head start to rest. Unable to sleep, Katniss and Gale decided to try hunting to replenish their food stores.

They fell into their old familiar pattern – each walking softly, looking for any sign of game. But today they were each distracted – Gale still feeling the rejection of his affection from yesterday, and Katniss embarrassed that she lashed out. After an hour of hunting had yielded three rabbits and four squirrels, they decided to head back. Gale bit his lip, urging himself to speak but unable to make himself say the words. Finally, just before they reached sight of the others, Gale blurted it out.

"I'm sorry!"

She turned around and looked at him quizzically. "What?"

The words now tumbled forth from him like an avalanche. "I know it's my fault. I know she died because of me. I shouldn't have called for her. I should have looked first, I should have waited. I'm sorry, okay? I've never been more sorry for anything in my life, and I never will be. She died because I couldn't wait to tell her, and I couldn't protect her, and I'm sorry!"

Katniss walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him before he could even register what was happening. They each dropped their belongings, their weapons and game bags tumbling to the forest floor beside them, and he wrapped his arms around her in return, so thankful that he felt her embrace again.

"And I'm sorry I can't protect you like he can," he mumbled against her hair.

She pulled back and looked at him, the unspoken question in her eyes.

"I can protect you – I will protect you with my last dying breath, from the diseased ones and anything else that comes at you. But your nightmares – I want to protect you from them, and I don't know how. I just want to make you feel better, Katniss."

She hugged him again. "I know."

He took a deep breath to inhale her scent before continuing. "He can protect you, though."

He felt her stiffen in his arms, prepared for a fight. "Gale…"

"It's okay, Catnip," he said. "I'm glad he can protect you. I just wish it was me."

She leaned back and studied his face – it held a sense of despair she had never seen before. This was her very best friend, her partner, her other half standing in front of her – and he was so sad. She had seen him angry, and amused, and bored, and regretful, and so many other emotions. But this was the first time where he truly looked hopeless, as if losing her was a foregone conclusion. She reached up to touch his face, bringing his eyes to hers again. And he looked so sad that she couldn't breathe, and she feared that he must not be able to breathe either. So she did the only thing she could think of to make him feel better, and kissed him softly on the lips.

It took a moment for him to register what was happening – when they kissed before, he initiated it because he knew she never would, never in a million years – but he soon tightened his grip around her and moved his lips against hers, parting them just enough to brush the soft inside of her mouth with his tongue. She gasped against him, moving her mouth to open wider upon reflex, allowing him to deepen their kiss. He kept waiting for her to push him away… really, any second now, she would push him off of her or at least break away…

But she didn't. She just kept kissing him back, her passion beginning to equal his. She clung to him, and for a moment he could imagine what it would be like to have her in his arms while lying in a bed, wrapped up together under a soft blanket, their naked skin pressed against each other –

A quick, heavy step and the snap of a twig broke them apart. They looked around quickly while grabbing their forgotten weapons, searching for the sign of attack but instead they saw him, staring at them with an unreadable expression in his clouded blue eyes.

"Peeta," Katniss said through strangled, hurried breaths.

"I just came looking for you two. We should get moving soon," he said quietly, then simply turned around and walked back through the trees towards their resting spot.

His absence left an awkward silence between Gale and Katniss. He wanted to look at her – he always did, that was his favorite thing to do – but he was scared that he'd see fear, or worse, regret on her face. By the time he gained enough courage to chance a peek, she was already moving away from him.

The tension between the three of them remained for the rest of the day. They avoided looking at each other, but Thom and Haymitch exchanged amused looks at each other and rolled their eyes.

"Those Capitol soap operas ain't got shit on those three idiots," Haymitch mumbled to Thom. The young man chuckled.

"Delly would have loved to see this," Thom said before sorrow clouded his face at the memory of someone else he had lost.

It rained heavily that night, which was good for replenishing their water supplies but terrible for everyone's mood. Katniss quickly volunteered for watch duty, afraid that if she had a nightmare, Peeta wouldn't be there to save her from her own subconscious.

Haymitch stayed up with her after finding another branch to whittle down. He found that the action settled his shaking hands, and gave him something to concentrate on other than his cravings, or his loss, or his deep, unending sadness that he could no longer hide with alcohol, just a thin layer of contempt for the world around him.

But the constant sound of knife scraping against the soft birch wood annoyed Katniss. She told herself she was annoyed that he was only going to dull his knife, and was wasting wood that could be used to make arrows or stakes or something. She didn't want to admit that Haymitch's very presence annoyed her, because he saw just how inadequate she was.

"Why do you keep wasting wood?" she finally snapped at him.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Why do you keep wasting the boy's time?"

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

He smiled. "That boy keeps following you around like a lost puppy dog, because he hopes that maybe one day, you're going to love him even just a tiny bit as much as he loves you. Meanwhile, you're off canoodling in the woods with the other one and you're too scared to tell Peeta you've made your choice, because you don't want to see that hurt puppy dog look in his face. And you're scared you might not have your snuggle buddy anymore to help with your nightmares. Sound about right, sweetheart?"

She was silent for several moments before answering. "No," she mumbled.

"No?" he asked.

"No, you're not right. Because I haven't made a choice," she said pointedly, annoyed by his phrasing. She sighed and adjusted her seated position, trying to figure out the words she wanted to say. "I don't want to make a choice. It's not fair that I'm expected to."

"That's not really fair to either of them, is it?" he asked.

She laughed, but there was no humor in her voice. "I have enough to worry about, Haymitch. We're running for our lives, trying to find shelter in this District 13 that is supposed to have been wiped off the map seventy-five years ago based on a path that Thom figured out when he was just a kid, on a generic map of Panem that, for all we know, isn't even correct. I've got to keep all five of us healthy and fed and safe and moving. We're running away from diseased ones, and we've got all the dangers of the forest to deal with on top of that. So really, being fair to Gale and Peeta's feelings is not my top priority right now."

Haymitch stopped carving the wood and looked at her. "If you really think the burden of keeping everyone alive out here falls on you and you alone, you're dumber than I thought. We're a group of victors, killers, hunters, mine workers, and survivors. Get over yourself, sweetheart."

They looked at each other in silence for a few moments before Haymitch returned to carving.

"I really hate when you call me sweetheart," she finally said, quietly.

"I know," he said.

The next day was just as awkward as the previous one, except for Haymitch and Thom who were just enjoying the show. In the late afternoon, they encountered a large lake, even bigger than the one near the cabin, and they wordlessly decided to camp there for the evening. The lake allowed them to refill their water stores, as well as bathe, a luxury none of them had since leaving the cabin. They split up, agreeing to stay within shouting distance of each other but far enough that they could each enjoy some privacy. Once alone with her thoughts, Katniss stripped down to her undergarments and slowly walked into the lake, enjoying the cool feel of mud and silt settling between her toes with each step. Once the dark water had reached the bottom of her rib cage, she pushed off of the soft bottom of the lake and dove in, submerging herself in cool, beautiful darkness.

She alternated between swimming and washing, taking a break between strokes to scrub the mud and sweat from her skin and hair before diving underneath the surface again. She felt free in the water, moving swiftly through the current and loving the feel of lapping waves against her back and sunshine drying the moisture from her skin. For a few brief moments, Katniss forgot about the threat of encroaching disease and danger, the weight of grief over her sister's death, and the tension between Peeta and Gale. For now, she was just free, weightless and floating in a beautiful lake in her beloved forest.

"You're a natural out there," a voice called out.

She lifted her head from the water and saw Peeta standing at the shore, his shirt crumpled in his hand, his hair and chest damp from the lake and dripping onto the waistband of his pants.

It was the first he had spoken to her since yesterday.

"Are you all cleaned up?" she asked, swimming towards him.

He shrugged. "Well enough. The prosthetic gets stuck in the mud, and I can't balance in the lake without it, so I made do by cleaning up on the shore."

She paused, her body still covered by the dark water. "I could help you."

His eyes widened, but he stayed silent.

She bit her lip and offered a tentative smile. "It's not like I haven't cleaned you before."

He smiled at the memory. "You made me cover up with my backpack. I don't have one here."

She laughed. "I guess you'll have to keep your underwear on, then. I did." She pulled the strap of her camisole from her shoulder to show him.

He blushed, and laughed in return. "All right. Um, can you help me walk in?"

She waited until he looked down, removing his pants, before emerging from the water, her own undergarments transparent from the water. He stepped out of his pants and was loosening the fastenings of his leg before looking up and seeing her right in front of him, offering her arm to him for balance. His eyes were on equal level with her waist, still too thin but still beautiful to him, the broad expanse of moist olive skin glistening in the sunlight. Her small waist curved outward to slim hips, barely covered in thin, damp briefs now sheer enough to make Peeta forget his own name.

"Peeta?" she whispered.

He looked up at her, his eyes darkened.

"Let me take care of you," she said.

She eased his arm around her shoulders as he finished loosening, then removed his prosthetic. As he looked down to find his footing and watch her ease him into the water, he stole a glance to her chest and saw that her camisole was also completely sheer from the water. He tried to control his body's reaction to her - she was still and always would be his biggest weakness of both mind and body - and exhaled in relief as the cool water rose up around his legs, his hips, his chest. He waited until she was also submerged before looking at her again.

If she was embarrassed that Peeta saw her essentially naked, she did not show it. She hung on to him for support as he tipped his head back into the water, then she lightly scrubbed her fingers through his tangled curls to wash away the dirt and sweat on his scalp. He closed his eyes and let the sensation fill him - the silt and grasses from the bottom of the lake between his toes, the sun shining brightly on his face, and Katniss pressed against him, running her fingers through his hair. It was the best he had felt in a very long time.

With his eyes closed and his breathing soft, he seemed so relaxed, so peaceful under her touch that she continued to wash him once his hair was done. Her fingers ran down the line from behind his ears to his collarbone, then across his shoulders, leaving a wet path that her eyes followed. Her hands continued downward, across his chest and softly rubbing against his ribs until she felt him squirm.

"You said you'd take care of me, not tickle me!" he said to her, his lopsided smile challenging her.

"You don't know how I take care of people. This could be part of it," she said, tickling along his sides again.

It only took a split second for him to do it - a slight bend of the knee, a shift along the muscles in his shoulders - but before Katniss knew it, he had grabbed her about the waist and turned her around, capturing her back against his powerful chest and pinning her arms against her sides.

"Wrestling?" she asked.

"That's right," he replied before shifting his arms slightly to tickle her.

He loosened his grip just for a moment, but it was just enough time for her to wriggle out of his hold. She turned around quickly but didn't take the opportunity to escape. Instead, she wrapped her legs around his waist and used her leverage to tickle him back. He wrestled back, and they splashed and giggled in the water as it warmed in the sun.

By the time Katniss realized how tightly she was clutching him and how good the skin on his shoulder tasted on her tongue, she could feel his excitement, his hard length pressing against the inside of her thigh.

By the time she realized how much she likes it, he was gently sucking the skin along her neck, and she gasped as his tongue ran over her pulse point.

There were no cameras around, and even if there were, there was no one left in the Capitol who would care. But she kissed him anyway, because she wanted to feed the hunger suddenly growing inside her. He didn't restrain himself like he always had to before - he knew there were no cameras, and that he was here with her and Gale was not, and that she was kissing him now because she wanted to. And that made him want to kiss her even more.

He kissed her and ran his hands over every inch of skin he could reach, because he wanted to. He has wanted to kiss her like this for so long, without audience or pretense or plot. There was nothing between them but wet skin and lust and a couple of very thin, very drenched pieces of fabric.

All they could feel, or see, or taste was each other. They were so terribly caught up in the moment that it wasn't until Gale's frantic screaming pierced the air that they broke apart, looking to the shore for the source.

They couldn't see Gale, but they could hear him, and now Haymitch too - it sounded like they were struggling in the water, and she can just make out Gale calling Thom's name. They rushed out of the lake and down the shore as fast as they could manage, but it was too late.

Gale and Haymitch struggled to pull Thom's lifeless body from the lake, waterlogged and swollen. Gale explained that he saw Thom facedown in the water, not moving. Now that he was on the shore, it was easy to see what happened. It was an injury that Katniss had seen a few times. On Thom's arm, flesh was torn away, revealing swollen musculature and clotted blood. If Katniss had the stomach to look closer, she would have seen the small holes in the tissue left by the snake's bite.

Out here, a snake bite could kill you in an hour. Even a quick application of a healer's medicine had only a very small chance of saving a victim. The few people who were lucky enough to survive long enough to get to a healer described an immediate hot flash of pain, and a growing inability to walk or move or, soon enough, breathe, as the minutes ticked by. If Thom had encountered a snake while bathing and been bitten in the water, he would not have been able to get himself to shore before his arms and legs felt too heavy to keep him afloat. It was just as well though, Katniss bitterly thought to herself. Better a quick death by drowning than a long, painful death on the shore as the venom stopped his heart.

Thom had always been quiet and still, only moving and talking when it was with purpose. Now, his death made him so still, it unnerved them all. They knew their friend would never move, or speak, or smile again. Gale collapsed to the shore, pressing his forehead against the wet dirt and releasing an angry scream that would be heard for miles away. Before anyone could stop him, he jumped up and barged back into the forest, not bothering to make his steps silent. Katniss wanted to go after him, but found herself frozen in place. She couldn't tear her eyes from their fallen friend, not until a heavy, uneven tread pulled her attention away as she watched Peeta walk after Gale through the trees.

"Let them go," Haymitch said. "Maybe the boy can help him."

Katniss and Haymitch did what they could for Thom. A grave was dug for him to keep his body from being a meal for the diseased ones, and his head was destroyed as a precaution. The sun was hanging low, dusky orange light reflecting across the lake as the last bit of dirt was patted down on Thom's final resting place. They found several smooth stones along the lake to use as a gravemarker, and laid flowers on the freshly packed dirt. Thom's body ended up a couple dozen miles from the edge of District 12 - far shorter than his dreams would have taken him. But it was farther than he or most District 12 citizens had ever been, and they hoped that his dying thoughts were of the cool water along his fingertips, the warm sun upon his face, his eyes filled with the sky. It was a better death than a coalminer could hope for, and better than anyone in District 12 could expect.

Katniss and Haymitch met up with Gale and Peeta a few hundred yards inside the forest. The men were setting up camp, helping each other with the fire and food and shelter. As Katniss approached the camp, still partially hidden by the trees, she saw the two men leaning down by the fire, next to each other. Peeta clapped his hand on Gale's shoulder and said something quietly, causing Gale to give him a tired smile in return and pat the hand on his shoulder.

They ate a quick dinner together before settling down. There wasn't much room to spread out between the trees, so Katniss and Gale settled down to sleep only inches from where Peeta and Haymitch sat for the first watch. Katniss was surprised when Gale rolled over behind her and curled his body around her back, holding on to her for comfort. Right in front of Peeta. But she couldn't deny that she liked how Gale felt against her body.

She was downright shocked when Peeta reached out and grabbed Katniss's hand - it was one of the few parts of her Gale wasn't touching. Was he angry that Gale was holding her? Was he trying to stake claim over her? No, that's not something Peeta would do, she thought. She looked up at him, questioning his action, but she couldn't see his face now that the fire was extinguished and the night sky was filled with clouds. So she squeezed his hand gently, and fell asleep as he squeezed back.

They began moving before the sun rose the next morning. After yesterday, they agreed to stay close to each other at all times. Unfortunately, the grief and exhaustion of yesterday had taken its toll on everyone's spirits. Without a map or Thom's guidance, nerves were frayed, especially between Katniss and Haymitch. After a few hours of their bickering, Gale yelled at them both to shut up before every diseased one within a hundred miles came after the sound of their "bitching and moaning". Katniss stomped ahead angrily, noting that Peeta was suppressing a laugh at their expense.

The four of them were tired, muscles aching and tempers short. The path ahead of them was unclear, and no one was even entirely sure that there would be a District 13 to go to. And they were still running for their lives, or at least, they thought they were. It had been over a week since they had seen a diseased one. Could they have all died out?

No, they just didn't see them coming.

As they came through a particularly dense grove of trees, a movement to the right of Katniss's vision caught her attention. It was a diseased one behind a tree, and his dead eyes had spotted them. He moved towards them quickly, but was stopped by an arrow through his skull.

"Nice shot, sweetheart," Haymitch said. He didn't want to admit how scared he had felt, or how scared they all still felt in the presence of a diseased one. Katniss's quick response had saved them, but it was easy for a diseased one to attack. They didn't stop for pain or injury, and moved far too fast on dead flesh and broken bones.

Katniss started to form a sarcastic reply to Haymitch's compliment, but decided against it for the sake of keeping the peace. She walked towards the body, now collapsed in a heap on the ground, and leaned over it to retrieve her arrow. Placing her boot on the head of the diseased one for leverage, she ripped the arrow back out through the skull with a sickening wet crunch, ensuring the brain was destroyed upon removal. She turned back towards the rest, smiling triumphantly and holding up the arrow over her head to make them smile.

They didn't smile. Instead, the color had drained from their faces and their eyes had grown large with terror, staring at something just behind Katniss.

Gale and Peeta held their hands out to her, beckoning her to come back. "Hurry, sweetheart," Haymitch said urgently as he grabbed the knife from his belt.

She ran back to them and barely had time to nock another arrow before she turned around and saw them - there were over a dozen of them, coming over the hill in front of them. They kept coming - now there were twenty, now thirty, and more. Merchants and Seam and Peacekeepers and more, all in various states of decay and moving towards them far too quickly. They knew they could not fight them off, not all of them. It was time to run.

They turned around and ran back into the trees. Katniss and Gale ran backwards, sending arrows back to the diseased ones at the front of the pack. Haymitch and Peeta were ahead, cutting away at grass and branches in their path. They moved too slowly, their legs tripping up as they ran between the tightly packed trees and their attention diverted between the path ahead and the danger behind them.

By the time they emerged from the overgrown trees, Katniss and Gale had exhausted their arrows, and Haymitch and Peeta's knives were dulled. Despite their best efforts, there were still so many, too many diseased ones pushing their way through the trees to reach them. And they were getting closer.

Haymitch looked around them, and saw a steep hill to their right. If they could climb it, they'd have the high ground - a strong advantage over the diseased ones - and be able to move faster. But Peeta's leg would make it difficult to climb. It would slow him down, which would slow them all down. Haymitch knew Katniss would never leave Peeta behind. He was sure now that Gale wouldn't, either. What they needed was a diversion to draw the diseased ones, so they could get away.

Haymitch had an idea, and he couldn't help but laugh to himself at the irony of it. For twenty-four years, he had watched terrified kids fight to the death and there hadn't been a damn thing he could do about it. In this moment, he refused to let his victors die, because he finally had a chance to do something.

"You three go up that hill and go north - you should be able to move faster. When you get away, keep moving northeast until you find District 13," Haymitch yelled, pushing them towards the hill.

"What about you?" Peeta asked, confused and frantic.

"I'm giving you a chance, kid. You promise me you won't come back for me!" Haymitch yelled.

He pushed Peeta and Katniss roughly until they had backed up against Gale. Haymitch looked at Gale and pointed a finger at the terrified young man. "You get them out of here - don't let them come back for me. You stick together and get away," Haymitch yelled.

Gale nodded and pulled at Peeta and Katniss, trying to get them to the hill. He knew they didn't have much time.

"GO!" Haymitch shouted. He took one last look at them - the closest he'd ever come to having kids of his own - before turning around and running back into the trees, waving his arms and shouting every curse word he knew to draw the attention of every diseased one around.

Gale grabbed Peeta and Katniss and shoved them both up the hill, refusing to let them turn around and witness Haymitch's sacrifice. Katniss climbed quickly, then turned around and helped pull Peeta up. Gale was behind Peeta, pushing him up when Peeta's prosthetic had trouble finding purchase on the rocky ground.

They ran for hours, and they never looked back. It was easier to concentrate on the fear of an agonizing death than the sorrow and shock over who they just lost. They used the sun as their compass, but eventually that stopped being effective - in their panic, they had no idea how much time had passed, no idea if the sun had moved down or if their eyelids just couldn't stay open anymore. Gale spotted a small cave carved into the bottom of a rock face, and ushered them into it for shelter. Looking outside to ensure no one was following them, Gale turned as Peeta passed him and saw a mottled crimson stain on the back of his leg.

"Peeta, your leg!" Gale whispered frantically. Katniss turned and saw the dark red drips along the lower part of his pant leg, and pulled Peeta down to sit. Gale kneeled down and pulled up the stained fabric, revealing the injury. The hours of running and climbing had rubbed Peeta's stump raw and bloodied against the prosthetic, until every step caused agonizing pain.

"Why didn't you say something, Peeta? We could have stopped!" Katniss said, hoping the anger in her voice could mask how scared she was (it didn't).

"No, you couldn't! I'm already slowing you both down. I'm not letting anyone else die for me!" Peeta shouted.

"Don't," she said quietly.

"Don't what?" Peeta asked, tears now spilling down his face. "Say the truth? Haymitch knew we all wouldn't get away because I was slowing us down. I should have stayed there and been the diversion. You'd all be better off without me slowing you down, and you know it!"

Katniss looked to Gale for help, but stopped short when she saw the pain etched on his face. It hurt Gale to hear Peeta talk about himself that way, just like it hurt her, as well.

"We would not be better off without you, and you know it. We know it, and Haymitch knew it, too. Haymitch loved you - he loved all of us, and he wanted us to be safe. If you give up now, then what he did was for nothing," Gale said softly.

Peeta shook his head bitterly. "You don't need me - neither of you do. You have each other and you'll both be fine."

Katniss grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. "I need you, Peeta," she said. She looked at Gale quickly before adding, "We need you."

She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, savoring the feeling of him in her arms. "Don't you dare leave me now," she whispered. "I can't do this without you."

She unwrapped an arm from Peeta's shoulders and reached out to Gale, pulling him into the hug with them. He was tentative at first, never being one to show much affection. But as Gale wrapped his arms around Katniss and Peeta, he held on to them tightly as he realized that they were all he had left - possibly all he would ever have again. Tonight - like every night now - could be their last night on earth. And he'd be damned if he'd let his friend - and he did consider Peeta to be a friend now - be in pain.

"We need you, Peeta," Gale said as he hugged them.

Then he released them and moved to his pack, removing the few medical supplies they still had to tend to Peeta's leg. As he rinsed off the blood, applied a poultice they had leftover from Prim's supplies and carefully bandaged the wound, Katniss continued to hold Peeta in her arms. He was still crying, the fatigue and pain and emotions of the day breaking him down to his very core. She moved her legs to his lap and wrapped herself around him as he cried, then ran her fingers up and down his back in a soothing motion as she began to sing softly in his ear.

Both men stopped their movements and listened - Peeta with his eyes closed and head on her shoulder, Gale sitting back just inches from them and watching.

The sun had almost set completely now, and they didn't dare risk starting a fire. When Katniss stopped singing, there was barely any light in the sky at all. But even in the dying light, Gale was able to see Katniss pull back and kiss Peeta, tentative at first but slowly building with passion. Peeta pulled Katniss completely on to his lap and tangled his fingers in her hair to pull her closer. Gale watched them move against each other in the darkness and realized how empty he felt in that moment. Not because she was touching Peeta, but because she wasn't touching him. He wondered if that's how she looked when she had kissed him in the forest - cheeks flushed, eyes closed in quiet rapture, chest rising and hips shifting. That felt like ages ago.

After a few minutes, the heat of the moment subsided and they pulled away and then looked at Gale hesitantly, unsure of his reaction. But he was making himself useful by laying out some dried meat and blankets for them to sleep in, purposefully not making eye contact with either of them.

Peeta looked up at her, his pupils drowning in unshed tears. "I'm so tired, Katniss," he whispered.

"Sleep," she said. And she eased him down onto the ground and tugged a blanket out of her pack, throwing it over the both of them before curling up against him. She reached up and wiped the tear tracks from his face softly to ease him to sleep, then reached across his chest for Gale's hand.

"We need you," she said quietly.

Gale reached back and took her hand. He couldn't deny her, because he needed her - them - too. She fell asleep soon after, and Gale stayed awake for watch. He settled his head against the cool rock wall and held her hand as he listened to the sounds of deep, steady breathing while Peeta and Katniss slept, curled around each other.

After a few hours, Peeta woke with a gasp, his body frozen as his consciousness struggled to leave the nightmare. His eyes darted around but found nothing in the dark. It wasn't until he felt the weight of Katniss's figure against him and the grip of Gale's hand suddenly grasped on his shoulder that he calmed down and remembered where he was.

"You okay?" Gale whispered.

"Yeah," Peeta said, slowly easing Katniss off his chest so he could sit up. "Just a bad dream."

Peeta couldn't see it, but Gale nodded sadly as he remembered what Haymitch had told him about their nightmares.

"I'm awake now, why don't you get some rest? I'll do watch," Peeta said quietly, trying not to wake Katniss.

"Okay," Gale agreed. His body had been fighting a losing battle to stay awake, and sleep was all he wanted in the world right now.

Well, maybe not all he wanted. He paused, unsure of whether to lie down where he was or move to what - who he wanted. After a moment's hesitation, he crawled to lie down behind Katniss, and pulled her into his arms. Peeta couldn't see it in the darkness, but he heard Gale's movements. Peeta smelled his sweat and felt the heat from his body as Gale passed over him to reach Katniss's sleeping form. As she shifted into Gale's arms, Peeta reached down and felt around until he found her hand, and clasped it in his own.

When Katniss opened her eyes, the first soft rays of the rising sun were beginning their ascent, illuminating the tops of the tall trees outside of their cave. She saw Peeta, silhouetted against the dusky sky as he looked out at the forest before them. She wondered if he was committing the view to memory to paint later, and then she wondered if he would ever have a chance to paint again.

His hand was still wrapped around hers, so she gripped his fingers in a light squeeze. He turned around to look at her, and the dim light just barely let her see the tired smile on his face.

"Go back to sleep," she whispered. "I'll watch."

He was too tired to refuse. He eased himself down next to her as she sat up, trying not to disturb Gale. Katniss turned back and kissed Gale softly on the forehead, then turned back and did the same to Peeta, already asleep.

She looked at them both, the planes of their faces softly illuminated in the morning sky. These two men were everything to her - or rather, everything she had left. Gale was everything from her past and from the moment where she had to put away her childhood and become the provider. He was the Seam and the silent settling of coal dust and the cool, crisp scent of the forest and the love felt from family.

Peeta was her hope, and the saving grace from her pain. He understood the terror she relived every night from the Games, because he did too. He was the dandelion in the spring and the warm tug in her belly and the sustaining taste of bread and the orange sunset filtering through the sky.

If she lost them at this point - either of them - she would surely break, because she needed them both, and they needed her.

When Gale and Peeta woke up later, it took only a split second for them to both realize that Katniss wasn't there.

The sun was high in the sky now, illuminating every inch of the very small cave that left nowhere for her to hide. Gale handed Peeta his prosthetic and helped him put it back on before they both rushed out of the cave to look for her, frantically calling her name.

She rushed back, her arms full of fallen wood and her game bag full. "I'm here!"

As soon as she was within reach, they both grabbed her and hugged her tightly. The fear that she was gone or had been attacked was very real, and it would have been their worst nightmare come true.

They spent the day getting ready for whatever would happen next. That meant making more arrows with the supplies Katniss had gathered, sharpening their knives and restocking their food supplies. It meant tending to Peeta's leg and doing what they could to keep him comfortable and free from infection. It meant spending time together and enjoying each other's company, because deep down they feared that not all of them would make it out of this alive.

The following morning, they stepped out of their cave at first light. Peeta's footsteps had become softer with practice but were still too heavy to be silent, especially as he had to shift his gait to compensate for the tender flesh that met the prosthetic. They had hoped to cover at least fifteen miles that day, and ended up making just over seventeen. That's how it went for the next two days - they pushed themselves just a little bit farther every time. Until the day they thought they just might find the edge of District 13 by sunset. On that day, they didn't even make it five miles.

Gale had been leading the way, and as he usually did every few minutes, he looked back to make sure Katniss and Peeta were still following him, safe and sound. He held both of their gazes and he smiled for a moment, just a moment long enough to lose his footing and trip over a fallen sapling.

He was embarrassed by his slip, but he let Peeta check him over for an injury and for Katniss to gather his dropped items and make a joke at his expense. He also let his guard down, and that's when they were surrounded by diseased ones, most of them familiar faces.

There was Darius - his trademark red, curly hair now matted with blood and tissue, in stark contrast to the dull, gray skin stretched across his skull. His formerly white Peacekeeper uniform was now permanently stained from mud, and coal dust, and bodily fluids.

There was Madge - the beautiful Mayor's daughter was almost unrecognizable without her jaw, but she wore the same dress she had worn to the Reaping last year, and it made Gale's stomach lurch. The red blood that dripped down the front of it from her last meal was fresh, like the color of strawberries.

There was Delly - even in walking death, her face held a smile, although this was more from the tearing of skin across her cheeks, giving her a permanent red grimace. Her body, bloated from death and putrescence, made shiny from tight, decaying skin.

There was Mrs. Mellark - Peeta thought she couldn't possibly be any more frightening than she was when she appeared to him in nightmares, face flushed with rage, veins and tendons stretching as screams and insults poured from her mouth and her fists made contact repeatedly on his body. He was wrong. Seeing her here, the living embodiment of the death she had shared with his father and brothers, was much scarier.

There was Mrs. Everdeen - the vacant, dead look in her eyes the same as when she mourned for her husband.

There was Vick.

There was Ripper.

There was Rooba.

There was Mrs. Undersee.

There was Cray.

There were so, so many of them.

And they surrounded Peeta, Katniss, and Gale.

What happened next was a blur. Screaming filled the air, and in the panic and confusion of the fight, no one knew which frenzied sounds were made by the living and which by the dead. Arrows shot in all directions as they tried to fight them off, but the diseased ones moved too quickly and didn't slow down for anything less than an arrow in the skull. Knives were thrown and swung, but it only made a mess of blood and sinew, all over the warm earth of the forest floor. They just kept coming.

All of the arrows and knives and weapons and hunting knowledge and fighting experience at their disposal, and it was still over in seconds. There were no trees to climb, no hills to run to. Even if Katniss, Gale and Peeta had a way to make a diversion, they had nowhere to go.

They fell against each other in defeat as the diseased ones came closer, circling their next meal. Katniss held on to Peeta and Gale tightly, her vision blurring from tears and then from something else. Their chests seized up and their lungs begun to scream for oxygen - they couldn't stop coughing as some sort of white gas filled the air. And because there was no breath left in her lungs, Katniss tried but didn't have the voice to say "I love you" before everything went dark.

Darkness.

Then silence.

A faint dripping noise.

And beeping, in time with her slow heartbeat.

Katniss slowly became aware that she was lying down, prone on a small bed with cotton sheets and a soft blanket across her legs that felt warm against her toes. Her limbs felt heavy and her head felt swollen, her skull feeling as if it had shrunk overnight and the edges of her brain pushed against it.

She opened her eyes to a room filled with light - a bright white incandescence that felt so artificial after a lifetime outdoors. Old books from before the Dark Days told of something called religion, which explained that after you died, if you were free of something called "sin" you would be welcomed to a place filled with white light where you were surrounded by all those you had lost and experienced nothing but happiness. But upon examining her whereabouts, Katniss thought there was no way this could be that place called "Heaven", because she was alone and terrified.

Her eyes began to adjust to the artificial light, and details came into focus. She had wires and tubes running across her body, including the drip, drip, drip of some clear liquid into her arm. A small screen was next to her bed with a green light that jumped with every beat of her heart, and displayed various numbers and letters that made no sense to her. And for the first time in what felt like months, she was alone.

She was alone.

No Peeta, no Gale. She had to find them. She refused to believe they were dead. Wherever they were, she couldn't believe they were safe until she saw, heard, felt them.

Katniss pushed her body up on the bed until she was sitting, and began pulling at the wires and tubes to free herself. She ignored the beeping and alarms on the machine and was pulling the last monitor from her back when the door to her room swung open.

An older woman with straight, silver hair and a gray uniform walked in. She closed the door behind her, then turned and observed Katniss, her eyes roaming over the discarded wires and tubes by her bed and the small, deceptively fragile-looking girl on the hospital bed.

"Hello, Miss Everdeen," the woman said.

Katniss flinched. "How do you know my name?"

The woman sighed in annoyance, and Katniss decided immediately not to trust the woman. "Everyone knows your name, Miss Everdeen," she said. "Your name is Katniss Everdeen. You are seventeen years old. You lived in District 12. You won the Hunger Games. And to the few people who are still alive in Panem, you are known as "The Mockingjay".

"Where am I? And who are you?" Katniss asked.

"Forgive me," the woman said with a tight smile. "My name is Alma Coin, and I am the President of District 13, which is where you are currently located. Four days ago, one of my squadrons detected activity of a swarm of diseased ones approximately four klicks from our southern perimeter. A hovercraft was sent to exterminate the swarm, and they encountered three survivors. The three of you were detained using nerve gas that incapacitated you, so you would be out of the line of fire from the hovercraft. You've been here in observation since then, recovering from your wounds and being observed for any signs of the disease."

"You said three survivors," Katniss said hesitantly, afraid of what Coin's answer would be. "Where are..."

"Mr. Mellark and Mr. Hawthorne are here, also recovering and being observed. None of you have shown signs of infection, so tomorrow you will be released from the hospital. The three of you are welcome to stay here in District 13 - we have a completely underground compound that is safe from the infection. However, if you choose to stay here, you must carry your weight. You will be expected to train and prepare to join one of our squadrons, and eventually go into the field as needed for containment and eradication of the disease and all those infected. You will join our squadrons and fight with us to eradicate this disease and rebuild our country," Coin said briskly. "If these terms are not satisfactory to you, you will be asked to leave District 13, with our best wishes for your survival out there."

"What did Gale and Peeta say?" Katniss asked.

Coin sighed again, impatient. "They were both revived within the past thirty minutes, and both said they wanted to speak with you first. If this is agreeable to you, they can be brought in here so you can discuss."

Katniss nodded, and Coin immediately walked out the door, shutting it behind her and leaving Katniss alone again. A headache was beginning to form behind her eyes as she struggled to process everything. They were alive, finally in District 13, and being offered a place to stay and be safe, until the day they had to fight back. If they refused, they'd be sent back into the forest with nowhere to go. Here in 13, they wouldn't be alone - they'd be in a squadron, with who knows how many others. And she wouldn't be alone - she knew Gale and Peeta wanted to speak to her first because they wanted to be where she would be. And she felt the same way - she was never leaving them again.

The doorknob twisted, pulling Katniss from her thoughts. As soon as she heard the heavy clunk of plastic and metal on the floor, she jumped out of bed and greeted Peeta at the door. He immediately pulled her into his arms and breathed her in as she buried her face in his neck and held on for dear life. A moment later, Gale walked in and was immediately pulled into their embrace. Katniss released the breath she didn't even know she had been holding, and her body again felt complete.

Coin stood in the doorway, watching the reunion and doing everything she could to keep from rolling her eyes. Sentimentality did nothing for her - she wanted an answer. After a few minutes of waiting for them to release each other from their tight grasp, she cleared her throat. "Can we get a decision?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," Gale said, looking at Coin as he laid his cheek on Katniss's head. "Give us tonight to discuss, and we'll have an answer for you tomorrow."

Coin's jaw tightened in frustration, but she gave them a curt nod and quickly left the room. Once she was gone, Katniss allowed the tears that had been pressing against her eyelids to fall. "You're here," she cried. "You're both here."

"When I woke up alone, I was so scared. I didn't know if you made it. I didn't know what I would do without you," Peeta said, his voice shaking from his own tears. "Either of you," he added.

"It's okay," Gale said softly. "We're all here. We're safe now."

"Are we?" Katniss asked. "I don't trust Coin."

"Neither do I, but this is our best choice. If we didn't stay here and fight with them, where would we go?" Gale asked.

Katniss looked up at Gale's face. He had developed two small lines between his eyebrows, the repetition of furrowing his brow in worry or anger or concentration etching a reminder of his difficult life on his face. She wondered when the lines had become permanent, and how she had missed it. She didn't want to miss anything else. She didn't want to be another reason for his life to be harder. If she had to fight, it had to be by his side.

She turned her head to look at Peeta. His eyes drank her in, as if he could not fully believe she was here despite the very real feeling of her body against his. Sometimes at night or the rare moment to herself, she wondered if circumstances other than the Games would have brought him into her life. Perhaps if she had been brave enough to thank him for the bread at school, or in the bakery, or any other time before she finally did in the Arena. Perhaps one of the times when she had caught him looking at her in class, if she had taken a moment to push away her stubborn attitude and embarrassment and looked back at him, something would have started between them. She kicked herself mentally many times over for all of the opportunities she had missed to have Peeta in her life just a little bit earlier.

"When we were surrounded," Katniss began, taking a deep breath to steel herself, "I thought we were going to die. All of us. And then there was this gas, and I couldn't breathe, and I was so scared. But I wasn't scared because I was dying. I was scared because I wasn't able to say 'I love you'."

She looked at Peeta. "I love you, Peeta."

She looked at Gale, who looked crushed with the assumption that she was finished speaking. "And I love you, Gale."

"I love you both. And no matter what happens, whether we stay and fight or leave and try to survive, I had to say it. I don't care where we go or what we do, as long as we're together." She looked back and forth between them. "All of us."

Gale and Peeta looked at each other and held their gaze, a conversation happening between their eyes instead of their lips. Eventually, they nodded, and looked back to Katniss.

"Let's stay here," Gale said. "Together."

"Stay with me?" Katniss asked them.

"Always," Peeta said.

She threw her arms back around Peeta and kissed him, overwhelmed with the desire to show him that he would always be wanted by her side. He grabbed her face and pressed her to him, feeling her dark hair between his fingers that was free from the braid he had fantasized about for years.

Katniss broke the kiss and reached over to grab Gale's waist, pulling him back to her and Peeta. She tipped her head up and stretched her body to meet his lips.

She had kissed them both before, several times, but never so close together. How different they felt - Gale's lips more full and chapped, likely from the habit he had developed of licking them as he concentrated on creating a snare. Peeta's were thinner but softer, the wet movement of his mouth now dancing across her neck. Peeta's jaw was more chiseled than Gale's but smooth, still hairless several months after the Games. Gale's jaw held a hint of stubble that she felt tickling her chin as he deepened their kiss and teased his tongue against hers.

She held them both and ran her hands up their back as she quickly realized that they, like she, were wearing hospital gowns and nothing more.

There was a time not too long before that moment, when Peeta looked at Katniss with all of the love in his dying heart and thought that she was "pure". But the hunger that was quickly coiling low in her belly and spreading further was definitely not pure. This hunger was not satisfied through kisses and the tentative touch of skin on skin. Instead, this hunger she felt grew with every shaky breath and quiver of lips against one another. Satisfying this hunger only made her want more. And before long, Katniss was starving.

She wanted to show them, to give them everything. Her heart, her trust, her body. She no longer felt complete without them. There was no way to know what would have happened between them if they had not been forced to escape District 12 together, but they had and now here they were, together and safe and so very alive.

Together they moved to Katniss's bed. It was, for District 13, a standard-issue hospital bed made to hold one patient. But it was bigger than the narrow bed Katniss had shared at home, and she knew it could fit all three of them. Tonight, it would have to.

Peeta lay down first, and pulled Katniss on top of him to straddle his hips. He arched his back to lift himself off the mattress as she pulled the ties of his hospital gown apart, allowing her to remove the item from his broad, muscled body. She felt him beneath her, aroused and twitching against her pelvis. Gale climbed on the bed behind her, and swiftly removed her gown to expose her lithe, olive-toned figure to them. She gasped, the sudden chill against her naked frame causing the soft hairs on her skin to rise. Peeta slid his hands up her thighs and over her hips, warming her as Gale removed his gown and began to suck on her neck, his own hands reaching in front to cup her breasts.

Gale's hands began to massage her, and she arched her chest to press her body into his warm palms. She threw her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes for a moment until she felt Peeta's hands moving - one behind to grab her ass, and one in front to slide his thumb down her stomach and further until he found her clit.

Her body was electric, every touch and movement of their hands shooting sparks into her bloodstream. Peeta's thumb, now wet from her excitement, made slow but persistent circles against its target, mirroring the motions of Gale's hands as his fingertips spiraled around her nipples.

She was starving, and she needed more.

Katniss lifted herself up and poised her body over Peeta's erection. It was her first time, and as Gale and Peeta's hands worked together to ease her hips down, she braced herself for the pain she had expected from a handful of awkward talks with her mother. There was a building pressure, then a sharp pain that slowly faded until she felt so incredibly full that she wondered how her body would ever bear the loss when it was over. She leaned over to bring her face closer to Peeta, and he kissed her as his eyes searched her own for any sign of pain. She mumbled "I want you" against his lips, and he complied.

Peeta grabbed her hips and slowly began to thrust upwards as she sat back up and reached behind her to grab on to Gale. She pulled Gale's arms back around her, and he put one hand back on her breast but used the other to slide its way down her torso until he found her clit, now throbbing and exposed from Peeta's ministrations only moments ago. Katniss turned her head and claimed Gale's lips with her own, and telling him "I want you" as well. She felt Gale, hard and thick and pressed against her lower back, and she was so overcome by sensation that she couldn't tell if she was flying or drowning or on fire, or all three.

She reached behind her again to grip Gale's length in her hand, and pumped it up and down to the motion of Peeta's thrusts. She wasn't in pain anymore, just overcome by something that was building and growing and pushing and coiling and feeling like it was about to burst and -

Her orgasm consumed her quickly, fire racing through her blood as if it was gasoline and her men had lit the match. As her mind cleared and her body calmed, she felt the strong, frenzied thrusts beneath her, inside her until Peeta cried out in ecstasy. His face contorted as his body found his release inside her, and she wondered if he would always look this beautiful to her now.

Gale's hands ran softly up and down her body, and she realized he was still hard and aching in her hand. She turned to look at him, and saw a storm brewing in his dark gray eyes. She was catching her breath, trying to slow her racing heart, and the most sensitive parts of her body were aching. But before she knew it, the hunger that had been momentarily satisfied was building again.

"Remember, Catnip," he said between impassioned kisses. "We have all night."

They did not sleep much that evening, but hours later when their bodies finally succumbed to their fatigue and curled up together on the bed, it was the best sleep any of them had ever experienced. And for once, none of them had nightmares.

In the morning, they had finished redressing in their hospital gowns just as Coin knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response. When they told her they would stay and fight, her stern face lit up with a broad smile for a brief moment before she nodded and left. A split second after her departure, a large, broad man carrying three bundles of gray clothing entered. He seemed to be the same age as Coin, but gave them all genuine smiles and handshakes before introducing himself as Boggs.

"I'll leave now so you can get dressed. Once you're ready, report to your rooms as identified by the number on your clothing. You'll find your lodging and schedule ready for you, as well as a map of our facility so you can find your way around. Our citizens keep busy and do everything they can to contribute, and we'll expect the same of you," he said. "I'll see you all in training tomorrow morning."

Once he left, they dressed quickly, suddenly feeling shy about their nudity when the haze of passion had cleared. The numbers on their clothing indicated that the three of them would be in different rooms, and they looked at each other at once, realizing the situation.

They would be separated here - no longer sleeping under the same blanket or bed, no longer there to comfort each other through nightmares and pain. Katniss felt her heart constrict in her chest at the thought. She loved them. Last night had only solidified that for her. Could she survive with a wall between them?

It did not take long for them to find the assigned rooms - three in a row, on the same side of a narrow, gray hall that looked like every other narrow, gray hall in the compound. They stood outside the doors, not sure what to do. They lived in District 13 now, and were expected to follow orders. Would they be better off separating to their own rooms, conforming to the expectations and schedule placed upon them? Or would they need to remain together, an inseparable unit that drew strength and safety from each other.

They stood outside the doors, not sure where to go.


End file.
